


Clutch and Break

by thecoldlightofday



Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-04
Updated: 2013-03-04
Packaged: 2017-12-04 06:46:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/707754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecoldlightofday/pseuds/thecoldlightofday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Request "Shane teaches Lori to drive."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Clutch and Break

Shane didn’t know what to make of Lori showing up at his place early one Saturday evening, smiling brightly like they were buds, like they were him and Rick rather than Shane and Lori, two people who had never spent more than a few awkward minutes alone together. Shane had been hoping it would stay that way.

“I need you to teach me to drive,” Lori said.

“Ask Rick, you already got him whipped,” Shane replied, more bitterness in it than he intended, but Rick had blown him off three times for her that week. He was allowed to hold a grudge.

He’d have stuck to his no too if she hadn’t spun him a sob story. She went on and on about Rick’s six month anniversary present, a road trip to the coast of New England, how disappointed Rick would be if they couldn’t go because Lori couldn’t pull her weight. Said that last part cocky, even, daring Shane to let Rick down.

“Fine,” Shane grumbled. “Meet me tomorrow.”

Rick wasn’t the only one who was whipped.

-

It took Shane ten minutes to realize teaching Lori to drive was a mistake. The woman had no common sense to her, no ability to use her hands and her feet. She could work the pedals or she could steer, but both at the same time was beyond her. They went around an old parking lot in a jerky stop-start-stop pattern until Shane made her pull over before he threw up in his seat.

“You don’t take your foot off the pedal, Jesus. It’s gotta be continuous pressure.”

That worked for all of thirty seconds before Lori decided continuous pressure meant stomping the gas pedal full to the floor.

-

They segued into street driving, which led to night driving, which inevitably ended with Lori shrieking as the car made a horrible thunking noise and jolted up off the road.

“Can I open my eyes?” Lori asked him quietly.

“Sure, take one last look at the moon before I kill you,” Shane grumbled, climbing out to check the bumper. Nothing, luckily, though the trash cans Lori had driven into were flattened. The only good thing about teaching Lori was that she’d already agreed to pay for any damages.

“Did I hit something? Was it a deer? Did I kill a deer Shane?” Lori opened one eye tentatively, dark hair silvered by the moon. The stars were pinpricks of diamonds in the sky. It was one of the brightest nights of the year. He didn’t understand how she couldn’t see where she was going.

Shane pinched the bridge of his nose.

“You went onto the curb, Lori.”

-

After six weeks, their driving lessons were finally coming to an end. Lori was competent, for the most part, when before she’d been all anyone ever needed to prove women weren’t meant to drive.

Their last day was highway driving, teaching Lori how to merge with traffic and switch lanes. She had to get a feel for driving at more than the snail’s pace she usually kept up too. She was doing pretty well at it, remarkably, her face pinched and serious as she looked straight ahead, checking her mirrors religiously. It was cute the way she got so serious, probably terrified out of her mind. For once the drive was silent, no Lori telling him everything about her day, chatting like they were girlfriends. It had dawned on Shane that he’d spent more time with Lori the last month than he had anyone else, more than Rick who was just always busy with classes and work and Lori. Rick who was too busy for Shane it always seemed.

Sirens sounded loudly behind them.

Lori had been so focused on the road she’d forgotten to check the speedometer. The needle had been drifting over eighty by the time the patrol car flashed its lights and urged them off the road. Lori started crying immediately, knuckles white where she tightly gripped the wheel.

“Shane I can’t go to jail,” she said over and over. “Shane,” she repeated, like she didn’t know any word other than his name.

Shane thought for a second about the poetic justice in the situation, but that spiraled quickly into Lori sobbing, and the broken way Rick would look at him, blame him, while Shane stared down at his feet.

“Hurry up and unbuckle,” Shane ordered. He reached a hand over and grabbed the wheel. “Slide over me.” Lori was frozen, too worked up to do anything he said. “Move your ass, girl, now.”

That broke Lori out of her panic long enough for her to crawl over him. They switched places just as the highway patrolman approached the car. “Be quiet,” he warned Lori. “And stop crying, Jesus.”

“You have any idea how fast you were going?” the cop asked, squinting hard behind his aviators straight at Shane. “You were more than ten miles per hour over the limit.”

Lori made a high pitched burbling sound as she choked on her tears. She had a hand over her mouth, trying to stifle them, but that was just making it worse. Her body heaved with the force of every sob. Shane should have guessed she’d ruin every nice thing he ever tried to do for her, first driving and now this, racking up points on his license for a girl that wasn’t even his. But she was Rick’s girl though, and transitive property dictated that made her the most important girl to Shane. A guy always had to look out for his brother’s girl.

“Are you alright miss?” the cop asked her. He cast Shane a suspicious glance, intensity of his eyes boring into Shane like fire.

“Yeah,” Lori said, feeble and thin, more of a squeak than anything. It was pathetic. She was pathetic. But Shane, well, he was pathetic too. He had to be if he’d gotten suckered into this, into putting himself in Lori’s place so freely. “I just…” She dissolved into tears again.

They were both going to jail. Lori was going to spill everything, she was going to get picked up for driving without a license, and Shane was never going to get into the police academy because he’d be convicted of criminal conspiracy.

“We’re on our way to the hospital,” Shane said quickly. That made Lori look at him again, sunlight reflecting in the tear tracks on her cheeks. Her mouth twitched with the beginnings of a smile.

“Our mom,” Shane said, voice cracking on both the Os. He managed to get his eyes to water.

The cop’s face softened, just a little. “She sick?”

“I dunno,” Shane coughed like he was trying to clear his throat. “Dad just called us at school and said to get to the hospital.”

“Georgia State?” The cop read the front of Shane’s sweatshirt.

“Yessir.”

“Go on then,” the cop said, looking mostly to Lori. He smiled at her gently. “But keep it under seventy this time.”

“Yessir.” Shane started up the engine. Lori’s cries changed their tempo, lighter and halfway to laughter, her shoulders relaxing in relief. He merged onto the highway and didn’t let out the breath he was holding until the patrol car was a dot in his mirror.

 “Thank you Shane,” Lori whispered. Her voice was raw from crying.

Shane pulled off his sweatshirt and passed it to her so she could wipe her face with the sleeve.

“Just pay more attention next time, okay? That shit ain’t gonna work more than once.”

Lori laughed, her mouth buried in his sweatshirt. Her laugh had a ring to it that reminded Shane of bells.

Lori sniffled and passed Shane back his jacket. “We can’t tell Rick about this.”

“Never.”

As they approached the turn off for the hospital, Shane switched into the right-hand lane.

“Where’re we going?” Lori’s eyebrows knit together in confusion, a few damp strands of hair stuck to the side of her chin.

“We’re gonna have to wait a few hours before we head back or else he’ll know we weren’t visiting anyone.” Shane took the hospital exit and kept driving. “You want to get something to eat?”

Lori nodded.

“Good ‘cause you’re paying. I’ve already done my good deed for the week.”


End file.
